Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria

Paul Collier and Pedro Vicente

No 2008-16, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: Following the wave of democratization during the 1990s, elections are now common in low-income societies. However, these elections are frequently flawed. We investigate the Nigerian general election of 2007, which is to date the largest election held in Africa and one seriously marred by violence. We designed and conducted a nationwide field experiment based on randomized anti-violence grassroots campaigning. We find direct effects on violence outcomes from exploring both subject-surveying and independent data sources. Crucially, we establish that voter intimidation is effective in reducing voter turnout, and that the violence was systematically dissociated from incumbents. We suggest that incumbents have a comparative advantage in alternative strategies, vote buying and ballot fraud. Voter intimidation may be a strategy of the weak analogous to terrorism.

Keywords: Violence; Conflict; Electoral Politics; Political Economy; Randomized Experiment; Field Experiment; Nigeria; West Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 O55 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csa:wpaper:2008-16

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